The Secret Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

The situation is simply bad. A worst case scenario. After years of negotiations with Iran to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, President Obama and his team were fleeced by the Iranians. Revelations have come out that during the discussions about the terms of the agreement, a secret side to the negotiations between Obama's team and the Iranians was occurring. So, secret, that only President Obama and Kerry knew about special agreements regarding inspections. One of the terms agreed to was that is there is a dispute about a suspected enrichment site, the Iranian's will provide the soil samples or other proof to international inspectors. Huh? The inspectors will not be able to go to certain bases to obtain the soil samples etc., and must rely on the Iranians! This is so nonsensical. Talk about blind trust. Certain military bases will be off limits, as well. So, the Iranians could move much of their material onto these bases and be immune, yet, still receive the billions of dollars frozen in oversea banks. Huh?

The agreement is about 160 pages. And many are finding out as they read it, that should there be a dispute about an inspection site and Iran refuses to comply, very little will actually happen to Iran. What happens if an undisclosed site is detected that is enriching uranium to 5%, which is higher than allowed? The IAEA inspectors will ask for a clarification from Iran. If this is not satisfactory, inspectors would request access. Iran, according to the agreement, can offer an alternate means instead of inspection (I wonder why?!). Iran could offer to copy all the hard drives from their computers for inspectors to analyze, but, there is no way of knowing if "smoking gun" material was omitted. There is no way to know if data was altered. If the inspectors insist on inspection and Iran refuses, five of the eight members must now agree to force Iran to comply. This may or may not happen with Russia and China.

Assuming the members concur and tell Iran to comply, Iran could refuse. If this happens, it then goes to the United Nations Security Council for a vote, which is a dicey thing also to reinstate sanctions. This is a lot of work and time to force Iran to comply with such a small infraction- that is, enriching to 5% versus 3.6%, as in the agreement. I mean, 5% is nowhere near weapons grade. If America and friends allow a "pass" to Iran for lying, what happens if the next violation is enriching to 10%, which is way below weapons grade? Another pass instead of wrecking the whole agreement?

The agreement has a built-in allowance for Iran to cheat by making the process so tedious and assumes everyone will be in agreement, which is likely not the case, when it comes to the voting. But worse, the agreement states that within 24 days, Iran must allowed inspectors in. The reality is more like three months. The inspectors will first inform Iran where they suspect cheating is occurring. Iran will then provide explanations. But, the agreement does not state a time frame which must be complied to. So, Iran, could take their sweet time in providing any explanation. Iran could easily delay extensively at this point in order to remove the suspect material, with many excuses. If the IAEA wants to visit the suspect site, the agreement fails to mention who judges Iran's explanations as valid. If Iran thinks they are the judges, they can delay further. Even if Iran states the IAEA are the judges, they could refuse because the IAEA is controlled by the USA.

The 24 day time period ONLY begins when the IAEA submits it reasons to Iran that a suspected is in violation. So, Iran could delay considerably before this occurs in their lack of responsiveness because there are no set time limits!

As of now, Iran has up to 78 days to interpret the agreement. That is a lot of time to move things around, hide things, before it kicks in. From the time the IAEA decides it wants to inspect a suspected site, odds are, it will take anywhere from 2-3 months to do it.

Such a great deal with the devil. The only alternative would be reinstate the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiation table. Ah, but, there is no turning back now. It is a deal that should never have occurred but for Obama's vain legacy.

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perrya 2 years ago

@Vegas, that is true, but the US can try!

Vegas Elias 2 years agofrom Mumbai

The U.S. has achieved pretty less with regard to sanctions on other countries. It is time the U.S. learns to live with facts; And the facts are that the priorities of other sovereign states are different from the priorities of the U.S. That's it. Nothing less and nothing more.

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perrya 2 years ago

Well, as others have pointed out, even if sanctions return, it is highly doubtful all the Euro nations will embrace it like they did once before, some may reject it. But your right, if Iran has enough material to make a bomb before the agreement goes into effect in October, then it is not covered. They may have some and storing them in north Korea, or maybe they will buy them. The agreement states nothing about NK or working with NK to get the bomb in NK. Iran already has engineers there. The whole thing is just like swiss cheese.

Doc Snow 2 years agofrom Atlanta metropolitan area, GA, USA

I understand a few things rather differently, based on, among other things, The Economist's coverage. (They have a excellent reputation for international coverage of such things, and are considered 'center right' politically.)

For one thing, as I understand it, if this goes to the UN, the vote would be whether to reinstate sanctions *relief*--in other words the default in event of a violation is that sanctions 'snap back' into effect.

Also, there is nothing preventing Iran from building a bomb (actually 10-12 of them--they have enough fissile material for that today) right now, and there is nothing preventing them from barring access to inspectors right now--except the possibility that sanctions could tighten even further. But basically, the main control on their behavior are the twin hopes of economic relief and greater international acceptance.

So what would we really be giving up in this deal?

As usual in such cases, it seems that hardliners on each side do the most to validate the views of their opposite counterparts.